1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to tow frames, more particularly to folding tow frames, and specifically to a foldable tow frame for seed planters.
2. Description of the Related Art
Tow vehicles, such as tractors, are commonly used in agricultural and other operations for pulling a wide variety of equipment, including field-working implements.
In modern, mechanized agricultural practice, efficient utilization of equipment and workers is highly desirable. Hence, field-working implements are often deployed simultaneously in multiple groups behind single tow vehicles to achieve the maximum possible field coverage with each pass of the equipment. Relatively large, high-powered tractors are currently available for drawing three or more individual implements simultaneously. It will be appreciated that such operations are relatively efficient because only a single operator and a single tractor are required for pulling several implements.
Seed drills are a type of agricultural implement commonly drawn by tractors and typically include shoes or disks (i.e. openers) for opening the soil, metering mechanisms for dispensing the seeds and press wheels for closing the ground over the newly-deposited seeds. Seed drills are available with alternative combinations of tools for planting various crops in fields with various conditions.
Seed drills have heretofore been available in a range of widths. For example, John Deere seed drills have been available from Deere & Company of Moline, Ill. in nominal widths of eight, ten, twelve and fourteen feet. Such seed drills can be combined to form ganged implements with widths of twenty-four feet or more. Although relatively wide implements tend to be efficient in operation because they cover relatively wide field swaths, they also tend to present transportation and storage difficulties. To transport and store such ganged implements, it is often necessary to uncouple them for individual transportation and storage. Public roads and existing equipment storage buildings are often unable to accommodate relatively wide implements. Operators of such implements may find it necessary to disassemble them so that their individual components can be transported over public roads and stored in existing storage buildings.
As an alternative to breaking down the implements, folding implements have been devised which are foldable between field and transport configurations. For example, Great Plains Manufacturing, Inc. of Assaria, Kans. has marketed a folding seed drill with a field width of thirty feet and a transport width of fifteen feet and two inches. The Great Plains drill includes a transverse center section and a pair of wing sections which fold between transversely-extending field positions and longitudinally-extending transport positions. In its transport configuration, the Great Plains folding drill may be towed on roads that would not be open to it in its full-width field configuration. However, the folding mechanisms of such implements tend to be relatively complex whereby the folding implements themselves tend to be relatively expensive. Also, a large number of individual implements, such as the seed drills described above, are presently in use and their owners are reluctant to replace them with expensive new folding equipment, even though certain advantages could be gained thereby.
The tow frame of the present invention addresses the aforementioned problems.